God the Almighty

By Tim Hall

Tim Hall is an elder on session at Community Church and one of the featured blog writers for Peak Reflections. Tim will be posting messages that help us think theologically about our faith.

2,600 years ago, King Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon dominated the territory of present-day Iraq along with most of the Middle East. His fabulous wealth and power excited the envy of the ancient world. Yet at the peak of his glory, when no human force on earth could touch him, this mighty king lost his sanity. He spent seven years living as a wild animal in Babylon’s countryside, wandering naked and surviving on native grasses. After regaining his sanity, Nebuchadnezzar admitted that his own power was nothing in comparison to that of the Most High. God is unstoppable, the humbled king declared. He “does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth.” Even the most powerful ruler on earth could not hold back God’s hand or say to him: “what have you done?” (Daniel 4:34-35).

The Bible commonly expresses God’s unlimited power--his omnipotence--in terms of his ability to “do whatever pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). Powerful though Nebuchadnezzar was, he recognized limitations to his might. Even the United States, which wields weapons the ancient Babylonian king could not begin to imagine, cannot do whatever its leaders want. By contrast, God’s voice alone can make a whole nation “skip like a calf.” One word from the Almighty can “shake the desert. . . and strip forests bare” (Ps. 29:3-9). The God whose command brought galaxies and black holes into being laughs at the pretensions of contemporary nuclear powers. As with the rulers of the ancient world, he merely “blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff” (Isaiah 40:24). For humans who are so easily impressed with displays of force, God has an unlimited ability to astound them.

Yet God’s power is far more subtle, pervasive, and awesome than flashy displays of mere physical might. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” Jesus warned his disciples. “Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt.10:28). God can penetrate beneath our physical being to the spiritual essence of who we are--our life in its deepest, most elemental sense. As the good and holy creator of our lives God also holds the authority to intervene in them, as he did with Nebuchadnezzar. Bombs may kill the body, but the God who does as he pleases holds the power to reunite dead bodies with their souls, to restore them to life, and to decide the eternal destinies of those he has raised.

This was the power people saw in action when Jesus lived and taught in Palestine 2,000 years ago. His power forgave the sins of an adulteress (John 8:1-11). It gave sight to a beggar (John 9). It gave life to a widow’s son, to a ruler’s daughter, and to his good friend Lazarus (Luke 7:11-17, 8:40-56; John 11:1-44). His power tripped up those impressed only with political and military might. They refused to understand it, rejected it, and ultimately did their best to wipe it out. Yet that power remained deep and subtle enough to turn his enemies’ short-sighted treachery into the redemption of the entire world. “We preach Christ crucified,” declared the apostle Paul, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Cor. 1:23-24).

As Christians, we celebrate the triumph of the one “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). Jesus’ death and resurrection was the mightiest act of the one who does as he pleases--the deed that has changed everything. It has reconciled us wayward people with God. It has opened the way for us to receive his forgiveness and experience his love. It has given us hope that physical death is not the end, but the prelude to a glorious life with God forever. It has set in motion a process of restoration that will eventually put this broken world itself back together as God originally created it (Romans 8:18-21).

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